Training of skills involving handling or otherwise manipulating objects in many if not all cases involves a “master-apprentice” strategy where a trainee learns the relevant skill by repeating the steps as performed by a master after having observed his/her master perform the task several times. For example, surgical training has always been one of the most important components in a surgeon's career development. Traditionally, surgical training is done with the “master-apprentice” strategy. Sometimes the master teaches the trainee hand-in-hand in order to show the trainee the subtle movements. With the increasing complexity of surgical operations nowadays, it becomes increasingly dangerous for the trainee to “learn” while operating on a real patient despite being supervised during the operation.
Existing surgical training is typically developed based upon patients with “standard” anatomical structures. The current training is usually a self-directed learning process using a standard model and procedure. However, every patient is different. In practice, a wide variety of patient anatomical structures can be observed. Using the existing training simulators, the trainee surgeon thus has limited exposure to patients with anatomical structures that differ from the normal population.
Currently, most of the digital training systems use a generic model for cholecystectomy with a fixed elastic model and with or without force feedback to simulate the surgery procedure. Most successful applications for liver surgery are using 3D visualization for surgical planning.
There are simulation training instruments that allow the trainees to “dry-run” on standard operations with fixed operative scenarios. These instruments therefore lack the variety of difficult operative situations found in real-life. In addition, certain maneuvers performed by an experienced surgeon that are required for such situations cannot be easily taught to the trainee. A survey of existing literature and systems follows below.
LAP Mentor [1] is developed by SimBionix. LAP Mentor provides simulation to practise the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS) skills required for laparoscopic surgery for new and experienced surgeons. LAP Mentor comes with haptic feedback, realistic visualization and a variety of training curricula. LAP Mentor is a model-based training system, heavily on self-practice to reach a desired proficiency.
SimPraxis [2] is a product of Red Llama, Inc. to teach surgical concepts and procedures. SimPraxis is a software-based interactive program running on a PC. With video, audio and written scripts, prompts, hints, references and materials. SimPraxis illustrates the steps with actual procedure.
LaparoscopyVR [3] is an interactive, high-fidelity surgical trainer that allows surgeons to practise FLS skills. LaparoscopyVR provides a training curriculum to practise the removal of gallbladder from the liver bed including identifying, clipping, cutting, and removing the gallbladder. The generic liver and gallbladder models are embedded in the system and haptic force feedback is also integrated.
A liver surgery simulation is developed by Herve Delingette [4]. The liver surgery simulation uses patient-specific data (Computed Tomography (CT) images) to construct the 3D model. More specifically, the physical model (soft tissue model) is developed using a linear and quasi-linear elastic model. To provide real time deformation and visualization, pre-computation is carried out which takes a few minutes to several hours depending on the number of mesh vertices on a PH 450M PC. The pre-computed result is then stored in a file for real time deformation and visualisation.
Mevis Research has a wide spectrum of medical image research on medical image analysis, visualization, and surgery planning [5, 6, 7]. Mevis Medical Solutions is a world pioneer in liver surgery planning service for liver visualization and planning proposal. In liver surgery, an intraoperative adaptation of preoperative planning using 2D ultrasonic data has been proposed. In planning service for live surgery. Mevis can also supply the liver model to customers in several days.
However, such patient-specific systems still lack incorporation of master feedback to better emulate the “master-apprentice” strategy which remains a fundamental characteristic of for example surgical training.
Example embodiments of the present invention therefore seek to provide a method and system that seek to address at least one of the above mentioned problems.